scarred by saguek
I'm very fond of ancient settings, visually. Costumes, horses, everything. So much pretty. (For some reason my mind is flashing back to the scene in House of Flying Daggers when Takeshi Kaneshiro is picking flowers while horseback riding... which is just fantastic.) So you would think (at least I did) that I would enjoy Korean historical dramas more than I do. Maybe I shouldn't be too quick to feel disenchanted, since I haven't really seen that many.
But I really do have an aversion to committing myself to 60-80 episodes of one story. Maybe I have a short attention span. Maybe it just feels like many of those episodes are P-A-D-D-I-N-G. I actually enjoyed the first 29 or so episodes of Queen Seondeok, but once she became princess it felt like the life drained out of the series. If it weren't for Bidam, I wouldn't have made it very far beyond that.
I think I'm stuck on episide 25 of Jumong. One reason I slowed down is that I kept wanting more scenes with Jumong and Soseono. After a while I realized maybe I should just watch some romance dramas and be done with it if that's what I was in the mood for. But another problem, I think, was the dreaded Table Plotting Scenes.
Table Plotting. A group of people sit around a table and, you know, plot stuff. The people are arranged in such a way that no one is on the camera side, which I imagine is less expensive because you can just plant the camera on one side of the room and film the whole scene. The overall effect is theatrical, like how actors would sit around a table on stage. That doesn't bother me either; after all, I enjoyed I, Claudius.
But it's just very static. They sit there and glower and talk about someone's downfall. Over and over again. In Queen Seondeok these scenes didn't bother me at first because I was so into the story, but once she reached the palace it seemed like every other scene was table plotting. Mishil was at least entertaining at the head of the table for awhile. It got worse toward the end because they added DRAMATIC ZOOM on everyone's face around the table, one after another after news was delivered. Seriously, DRAMATIC ZOOM on every face. In Jumong it was the queen and her sons glowering and muttering "Jumong" every fifteen minutes or so.
It's striking how well they avoided this in Legend and Return of Iljimae, just by varying the settings and (in Legend's case at least) moving the camera around and using lighting really well.
So maybe I've been drawn more to the shorter fusion sageuks lately (though I'm stuck on episode 5 of Chuno for some reason). It's been awhile since I've watched any Jewel in the Palace so I can't remember. I do love Damo and Sungkyunkwan Scandal.
And though I love a few Chinese historical movies, I'm not very fond of wuxia TV series, at least the ones I've tried. Maybe I'm just picky and demanding. I remember the moment I realized I couldn't watch any more of Legend of the Condor Hero (2008): there had been two or three episodes in a row of nothing but fight training, and I remember saying to the screen "I just realized I don't care what happens to any of you anymore"...
It's probably just me.
But I really do have an aversion to committing myself to 60-80 episodes of one story. Maybe I have a short attention span. Maybe it just feels like many of those episodes are P-A-D-D-I-N-G. I actually enjoyed the first 29 or so episodes of Queen Seondeok, but once she became princess it felt like the life drained out of the series. If it weren't for Bidam, I wouldn't have made it very far beyond that.
I think I'm stuck on episide 25 of Jumong. One reason I slowed down is that I kept wanting more scenes with Jumong and Soseono. After a while I realized maybe I should just watch some romance dramas and be done with it if that's what I was in the mood for. But another problem, I think, was the dreaded Table Plotting Scenes.
Table Plotting. A group of people sit around a table and, you know, plot stuff. The people are arranged in such a way that no one is on the camera side, which I imagine is less expensive because you can just plant the camera on one side of the room and film the whole scene. The overall effect is theatrical, like how actors would sit around a table on stage. That doesn't bother me either; after all, I enjoyed I, Claudius.
But it's just very static. They sit there and glower and talk about someone's downfall. Over and over again. In Queen Seondeok these scenes didn't bother me at first because I was so into the story, but once she reached the palace it seemed like every other scene was table plotting. Mishil was at least entertaining at the head of the table for awhile. It got worse toward the end because they added DRAMATIC ZOOM on everyone's face around the table, one after another after news was delivered. Seriously, DRAMATIC ZOOM on every face. In Jumong it was the queen and her sons glowering and muttering "Jumong" every fifteen minutes or so.
It's striking how well they avoided this in Legend and Return of Iljimae, just by varying the settings and (in Legend's case at least) moving the camera around and using lighting really well.
So maybe I've been drawn more to the shorter fusion sageuks lately (though I'm stuck on episode 5 of Chuno for some reason). It's been awhile since I've watched any Jewel in the Palace so I can't remember. I do love Damo and Sungkyunkwan Scandal.
And though I love a few Chinese historical movies, I'm not very fond of wuxia TV series, at least the ones I've tried. Maybe I'm just picky and demanding. I remember the moment I realized I couldn't watch any more of Legend of the Condor Hero (2008): there had been two or three episodes in a row of nothing but fight training, and I remember saying to the screen "I just realized I don't care what happens to any of you anymore"...
It's probably just me.